A failed pol shakes fists at the diverse world

He might have said simply that monumental change is afoot and suggested ways -- beyond the impossibility of trying to quash it -- of assuring that the country is stronger because of immigration.

He might have noted the very real problems inherent when Third World meets First World without casting them as imperiling civilization itself.

But these are simply not options for Patrick J. Buchanan.

His new book, "The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization," is nothing short of a renewed call to culture war.

The enemies, Buchanan says, are immigrants who breed too much; Western women who breed too little; a society that prays not enough; people from alien and inferior cultures; history lessons that tell all, when dressing it up in patriotic hues would be much more pleasing; wimp conservatives who will not move the debate beyond cutting taxes and boosting defense; and liberals involved in a grand conspiracy to poison minds and win converts to the de-Christianization of a world soon to be ruled by one overarching government.

In this book, there is no middle ground. Americans and Europeans are good, though Western women's value seems to be only in their capacity to give birth.

Everyone else, with the possible exception of the Japanese, is bad.

Oh, to be fair, not bad as in scum of the earth, though there are whiffs of that. But bad as in alien -- so alien that they threaten everything from our churches to Sunday dinner at Grandma's.

At the top of Buchanan's hit list are selfish Western women.

"Only the mass reconversion of Western women to an idea that they seem to have given up -- that the good life lies in bearing and raising children and sending them out into the world to continue the family and nation -- can prevent the Death of the West," he writes.

But Buchanan inadvertently provides the solution to his perceived problem.

"The young family with a batch of kids is now an endangered species," he writes. "Only the young rich can afford that 'lifestyle,' and they are uninterested."

It seems clear.

Help the Third World become prosperous, and it will have fewer babies.

Help immigrants in this country become more prosperous, and they, too, will have fewer babies.

He would induce families here to have babies with tax incentives and by allowing companies to pay parents more than single people for the same work.

It's unclear how this jibes with Buchanan's opposition to preferential treatment and affirmative action.

Perhaps the most confounding part of Buchanan's argument is his pure misunderstanding of feminism.

It's never really been about hating men or wanting to be men.

It's about women wanting to define opportunities for themselves, about feelings of self-worth and the need to move beyond dependence on men to dependence on skills allowed to flourish.

It is all so simple to Buchanan.

"Women are profoundly different, with separate and distinct social roles that are not interchangeable, judicial orders notwithstanding," he writes. "They cannot live as men do without calamitous consequences for the family, society and country."

Really, the only way to look at this argument is that they are having far more babies than we are.

There are more of them than there are of us. Them and us. Implicit in Buchanan's writings: Even when they live here, they are still "them" and always will be.

How else to interpret this Buchanan statement:

"At that Portland State commencement where Mr. Clinton said that in 50 years there would be 'no majority race left in America,' students cheered. Surely, it is a rarity in history that a people would cheer news that they and their children would soon be dispossessed of their inheritance as the majority in the nation their ancestors built."

But what I find really confusing is Buchanan's contention that immigrants to the United States are endangering Western civilization.

Last I looked, most come from Western nations.

Oh, I get it.

They speak different languages, are viewed as aliens and start out poor. Wait, doesn't this describe many European immigrants of old?

Buchanan notes that newer immigrants are slower to assimilate because of back-and-forth traffic and proximity to host countries.

My parents were Mexican immigrants. I have a college degree, am gainfully employed and my English is far better than my Spanish.

This is not mission impossible, Mr. Buchanan.

Buchanan resists the labels others impose on many of his views: nativist, xenophobic or racist.

You be the judge.

"All civilizations are not equal. The West has given the world the best that has been thought and taught. Western civilization and culture are superior," he writes.

There is much in this book that points to selective, if not delusional, reasoning. Taking the cake, however, is Buchanan's claim that the great silent majority believes as he does.